


Words

by celestialsam



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmates, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-11 00:25:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3308780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestialsam/pseuds/celestialsam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soulmate au where the last words you hear your soulmate say are tattooed on your skin.<br/>"Dean's spent his whole life wondering how the hell he wound up with his own name on his wrist."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words

Sam’s grown up with the words on his skin.  
He knows what they mean, of course, everyone does, but it’s still such a strange concept : your soulmate’s last words. When he was younger, he always thought it was kind of morbid; “Last words? Why can’t it be the first thing they say to you?” he used to ask Dean.   
Dean would always shrug. He shrugged a lot. “That’s just how it is.”  
Sam thought about the words tattooed on the inside of his wrist a lot, and so did everybody. Especially if yours weren’t so vague. Dean. Dean’s was vague.  
His own name. With an exclamation point at the end, to his credit, but Dean grumbled about it all the same. Sam’s weren’t quite so vague, but still he thought everyone’s were to some extent. After all, you could have, “I love you so much, I can’t believe we got married. Tell our kids I love them,” and that still wouldn’t be that much information. You still wouldn’t know who said them, or in what context, or how many kids for that matter. And that was maybe a ridiculous example, because most weren’t like that. Most were one or two sentences.  
Sam’s was just one.   
I’m proud of us.  
He’s had these words on his skin from the moment he was born. He’s had years to decipher them, work them out, discover hundreds of different scenarios in which they might apply. Figure out what they might mean. He’s thought about them too many times, the mantra in his head, the one sentence that was going to mean a lot one day, and sometimes he felt as though the words weren’t just etched into his skin, but his soul, too. After all, they felt almost natural. Felt familiar. He wasn’t sure if that was supposed to happen. And everything in his life has led up to the moment when he’ll hear them. The moment he does, of course, will be one of the saddest of his life.   
But here he is, thirty-one years old, and he still hasn’t met someone he’s sure those words could come from. When he was younger, he thought it’d be some girl. But Sam hasn’t dated a girl for a very long time, and when he considers it now, he supposes it could very well be a boy, but none of that is coming to mind now. Now, he kneels on the floor of this dank, dusty basement and holds his brother’s body in his arms. He can practically feel the life slipping out of Dean, and that life is all he’s ever known.  
Because the thing is, Dean’s life isn’t just Dean’s. In a way it’s also Sam’s. It’s Sam’s patches of light in what seems like a never-ending dark, it’s the constant thing that keeps him breathing. It’s the boy in the driver’s seat, next to him along for the ride as long as he can remember. And that life is fading away. Sam knows it this time. Something in him is clawing at him, is screaming that Sam’s not going to get his brother back this time. And he’s not sure when the tears started, all he knows is he has to work hard at blinking them back to clearly see Dean’s face when he opens his mouth.   
“Sammy-“ he chokes out, and Sam immediately starts shushing him, about to murmur how it’s going to be okay, he’s going to be okay, but then Dean starts up again.  
“I got somethin’ to say to you-“  
And Sam’s mind starts reeling. Of all the things Dean would want to be his last words, all the things he wants to say to Sam, all the things he wants to tell him, all the things he could say. That he loves him, that he needs to let him go. That it’s not too late, he needs to go find a girl and start the family he always wanted. That their journey meant something to him, that they accomplished something. Almost like he was proud- Oh. Oh no.  
Sam’s mind was spinning again, trying as fast as it could to process what it would mean if Dean actually says that, and his thought process feels like it’s going into overdrive, like this is too much too fast, but then Dean’s lips are opening again. And Sam leans in close.  
“I’m proud of us.”  
And Dean’s eyes go lazy and unfocused as Sam feels him take his last breath.  
\--  
Sam knows what it means. That Dean is- was, that is, his soulmate. The inside of Sam’s chest feels like it’s on fire, and it’s a miracle that he’s able to breathe at all. Looking back on his life now, he didn’t know how he didn’t see it coming. Looking back on it, it’s almost obvious.   
Because Sam was always happiest when he was with Dean. That was just a fact. Also probably a fact about soulmates, but Sam had just assumed he hadn’t met his yet. And, thanks to ignorance, or heteronormativity, or whatever else, he had always assumed it would be a girl. He knows he wouldn’t have minded if it was a boy, but having it turn out to be the one boy in the world who happened to be your brother, well, that was a different story.   
He sees it now. He sees it in the way Dean used to look at him, like everything else in the goddamn universe was cold and bleak; and Sam was this oversized, shining sun. Like he was the only light and Dean wanted to bask in him forever. He saw it in the way they used to bump shoulders, lightly, but obvious enough for Sam to know it wasn’t an accident. He saw it every time Dean protected Sam with his life; when he killed for him, when he sold his soul for him. He saw it right in front of him every fucking day and he still never realized. He shakes his head, and downs another gulp of whiskey. It still doesn’t help.

The last words you hear your soulmate say, Sam remembers. Technically, that’s it. To make it simpler, everyone always says it’s your soulmate’s last words, but sometimes, you’re the half that dies first.  
Dean’s spent his whole life wondering how the hell he wound up with his own name on his wrist. He never thought about it enough to realize how it wouldn’t make sense for his soulmate’s last words to be “Dean.” He never realized how it was much more logical to assume that when he was the one dying, his soulmate would be the one yelling out his name.  
When Sam realizes he was calling “Dean, Dean-Dean,” over and over again as his brother died, he makes the connection, and feels sick to his stomach. He never fucking realized. Neither of them did.  
He has to go puke up his meal into the toilet after that.  
\--  
Weeks go by, months, soon, and Sam is in a little bit better shape. He works with Cas to find leads sometimes, and it’s safe, it’s familiar. Sometimes it’s a little too familiar, and Sam swears Cas’ voice could sound almost like his brother’s. But Cas is helping, Cas is trying, and Sam’s grateful for that.  
The therapist (grief counselor, technically, but Sam doesn’t like to call it that), helps, too. Sam tells her as much as he can. Yes, his name is Sam Winchester. Yes, he’s from Sioux Falls, Indiana. Yes, both his parents died a couple years back.  
“And now you’ve lost someone else, too?”  
Sam nods. He’s about to tell her that his brother was murdered, he knows he needs to say it, but before he can control them, the words are out of his mouth.  
“My boyfriend.”  
She hesitates for a minute, then starts to nod.   
“I see. Were you two, um, married?”  
Sam sighs. “No, but we might as well have been. We’ve been-we’ve been friends since we were kids, and we only got together a couple years ago because we hadn’t-“ he stops for a minute, realizing he was crying.  
“We hadn’t seen each other in a really long time, I-I made a stupid decision and left, just about broke his heart, and then we saw each other again and we got together and-“  
I fucked it up, Sam thinks, just like I do with everything.


End file.
